The purpose of this guide is to provide resources to assist Darden students, faculty, and staff with researching legal proceedings related to specific companies. This guide covers bankruptcy cases and various forms of legal action. Information about these legal proceedings, as well as court documents produced during them, can offer insight into the internal operations of a company and its performance.
This guide is not meant to provide any interpretation of the law or any legal advice. The Darden Camp Library staff is similarly unable to provide legal advice or interpret legal issues. This guide is merely a roadmap to finding the types of information it discusses. The University of Virginia Law Library can provide more in-depth legal research assistance, but they also cannot provide legal advice or interpretation. As their website states, "Persons needing assistance in analyzing a legal problem are advised to consult an attorney."
Information about major legal proceedings a public company is involved in are available in its 10-Qs and 10-Ks, which are accessible through several channels including the SEC's EDGAR service, the company's investor relations webpage, and Lexis Nexis Academic. Further, if a company files a bankruptcy petition, they are required to file an 8-K within four days.
Factiva and Lexis Nexis Academic both offer ways to search major news publications for articles concerning legal proceedings. Check out the News sections of the other pages of this guide for more information.
Per the reference librarians at the UVA Law Library, Bloomberg Law is the preferred source for finding dockets from various types of legal proceedings as it pulls directly from the US Court's Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) service. We have limited access to Bloomberg Law through our Bloomberg terminals in the Capital Markets room.
Specific instructions for finding documents in Bloomberg are located in the Court Documents sections of the other pages of this guide.
In many cases, it may be helpful to contact the Law Library for more in-depth legal research guidance.
refdesk@law.virginia.edu
(434) 924-7465
The Darden reference librarians are also willing to contact the Law Library on your behalf.
Darden Camp Library, First Floor, 100 Darden Blvd., Darden Business School, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903 Mailing Address: Darden Camp Library, PO Box 6550, Charlottesville, VA 22906-6550 Google Map with Darden Library Email: library@darden.virginia.edu Phone: (434) 924-7321 FAX: (434) 924-3533